How the hell can The Hobbit be Three movies. Two movies is utterly ridiculous, but three is just madness.

Perhaps I can see by CT seems to be so despairing...

Grrr....

S.

"THE Hobbit is no Lord of the Rings. Its a 350-page book, bright and breezy in tone and can be finished in a single sitting.But Peter Jackson and his studio backers, Warner Bros, see J.R.R. Tolkien's children's story differently. They see a three-film epic.

Jackson has already split The Hobbit into two parts for its screen outing - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again. But while presenting footage of his much-anticipated return to Middle-earth at Comic Con this weekend, he let slip that he wasn't prepared to say goodbye to his beloved hobbits just yet.When asked if he was considering splitting the second film into two parts, he said he and Warner Bros were in "discussions".

"We have certainly been talking to the studio about some of the material we can't film, and we've been asking them so we can do a bit more filming next year. I don't know what would come of that, whether it'd be extended editions or whatnot. But those discussions are ongoing," he told movie website HitFix.

"There's so much good stuff in the appendices that we haven't been able to squeeze into these movies."Jackson finished filming both Hobbit films last month after an epic 250-day shoot in New Zealand. His respect for Tolkien's fantasy world is such that his motives for making a third Hobbit film are unlikely to be driven by money.

However, the Lord of the Rings franchise is a lucrative one and Warners will be looking for ways to continue it. Splitting the second film - which will see Bilbo Baggins confront the dragon Smaug - seems to be an ideal way to wring more cash out of audiences.

Warners started the trend when it served up the final Harry Potter book in two chunky instalments. The decision earned the studio an extra billion dollars at the box office.

Lionsgate studio adopted the same strategy for the final chapter of its popular Twilight series and last week it was at it again, announcing it was splitting the third Hunger Games book, Mockingjay, in half.Although such decisions are good for studios' bottom lines, they can backfire. Critics panned Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1 for being bloated and Hunger Games fans are already griping that Mockingjay is the weakest book in Suzanne Collins' trilogy and is unlikely to make one good film never mind two.

In Jackson's favour is the rich, textured world Tolkien created for Bilbo and Gandalf to inhabit. The appendices of The Lord of the Rings are a gold mine of back stories and Middle-earth mythology.It's ironic that Jackson is considering making three films out of The Hobbit when a complicated fight over the film rights, a fallout between Jackson and the studio heads, the bankruptcy of MGM and a union dispute almost stopped the book getting to the screen.

During his Comic Con appearance Jackson touched on The Hobbit's troubled history and addressed the furore over his decision to film it at 48 frames per second, which is twice the standard frame rate.In April Jackson showed footage of The Hobbit at the higher rate but some of those who saw it likened the experience to watching BBC dramas from the 1970s. The disappointing reaction was the reason he decided to show Comic Con audiences footage at the standard rate.He told the Huffington Post: "What I learned from the CinemaCon experience is don't run a seven or eight or ten minute reel where the total focus is going to be on the 48 frames. I mean, that was a disappointing thing.

"I'm not going to go to Comic-Con with 12 minutes of footage and have the same reaction. I don't want people to write about 48 frames. Forty-eight frames can be written about in December. When people can actually watch a full length narrative film, everyone can go to town on 48 frames. And if you hate it, you hate it."

The 12-minute reel Jackson showed at Comic Con gave fans glimpses of five full scenes, including Bilbo's recruitment to the quest, Gandalf being chased through darkened hallways and Bilbo's first encounter with Gollum. Those scenes were intercut with brief shots of Saruman, Legolas and cave trolls.

It's just all a little tiresome. I've kind-of been keeping up-to-date, reluctantly; been following quite a lot of Pieter's posts on Facebook. I definitely will see the films. And, to be honest, I just want to go & see them without having seen that much (footage, stills, trailers, interviews, etc) beforehand. Sort-of free to judge them on merit, without too much "48 frames looks like 1970's BBC" in my head before I even step into the cinema!

That said, three films seems like milking it a little. I suspect most of this stuff will be like all the stuff that appeared on the extended versions of LotRs; the difference being, LR really had to be only three fims (with the extra material on extended versions), H doesn't have to be two. I wonder how far Jackson would be allowed to push it though --what's to stop him (hypothetically) constructing scenes/films from the parts of the appendices that cover the First (admittedly about one paragraph) & Second Ages?

BH

Posted on: 2012/7/16 4:46

_________________You drive a hard bargain – you can have it for £10 all-in – one consolation (for you) is that you do not have to hear the cries of my children, for bread...

That is an interesting point. My understanding is that Zaentz and company have no rights to material outside of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. However, some of the accounts of the First and Second Age are briefly mentioned in the appendices, including the tale of Beren and Luthien. I shudder to think of what jackson's adaptation of that would look like.

Red wrote:That is an interesting point. My understanding is that Zaentz and company have no rights to material outside of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. However, some of the accounts of the First and Second Age are briefly mentioned in the appendices, including the tale of Beren and Luthien. I shudder to think of what jackson's adaptation of that would look like.

If the new movies are successful, I imagine New Line's lawyers will be doing everything they can to ensure they can film anything vaguely mentioned in the appendices.